Travel Maker poster, featuring the name of the restaurant in the middle with “American Breakfast All Day” and a stylized fried egg and fork in the center of a circle with colorful drawings of various famous buildings around the world along the outside of the circle
For a friend’s birthday, we met up at Travel Maker near Hongik University Station, for an all-American brunch.
The restaurant is on the second floor of a building off the κ²½μμ μ²κΈΈκ³΅μ (Gyeongui Line Forest Park), and as it’s a small location, you must add yourself to the waitlist via the CatchTable set-up on the first floor. I have a Korean account, but it is easily accessible if you don’t know Korean or have a Korean phone number. (They will either contact you via KakaoTalk or e-mail when your table is ready.) I decided to check in since I was the first of my friends to arrive, and our wait-time was maybe 20 minutes. I saw quite a few delivery drivers stop in to grab people’s pick-up orders, and this was around 12:30 pm.
this Interstate 95 South sign makes no sense because it is not in front of an exit and you do not go upstairs to make an order; this is just for decorationmenu posted up outside the restaurant on a blue wall with some American license plates for decorationCatchTable waiting list kiosk next to a computer monitor showing travelmaker_seoul Instagram photosstaircase leading to the restaurant, decorated with famous American street signs in the infamous green with white letteringopen front door of the restaurant with a plane window decal on the glass door; a box for umbrellas is next to the doortwo small tables and four stools for people waiting until their table is readythe restaurant as seen from the street; in blue with white lettering
Here’s some pictures of the menu. You can enlarge to read or find it on Naver Maps.
second page of the menuthird page of the menuback page of the menufront page of the menu
Two of us decided on the waffle combo and one on the pancake combo. The French toast was pretty amazing, the bacon was crispy, the sausages were great, the scrambled eggs were good but needed a little salt (easy fix) but those hashbrowns… I haven’t had proper hashbrowns in years. You could do a blind taste-test with Waffle House vs. Travel Maker and I’m not sure I would be able to tell the difference. Side-note, yes, that’s an “Obama Breakfast” and no, I do not know why it’s called that.
French Toast Combo: three half-slices of French toast combo on a plate covered in syrup and powdered sugar, next to another plate with scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, a slice of bacon, and two link pork sausagesclose-up of the French toastclose-up of the scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, bacon and sausages
As I mentioned before, the location itself is small, with only a few tables. They did, however, make good use of the space because on the right side of the restaurant, where normal tables would not fit, they installed bar seating that faces into the restaurant, offering a few more seats (and good for solo travelers!).
view of the interior of the restaurant with black and white checkered flooring and some sparse Halloween decorationsother side of the interioron the other side of the Halloween decorations is the bar that faces into the restaurantsome Americana stuff is on all the walls, like the Chicago Bulls flaghere you can see a table in the corner, across from where you place your orderseveral TVs are along the wall, and in the center here is the entrance to the tiny kitchenextra syrup bottles, etc. but with a sign stating that they are already on your table or please ask the staff for helpclose-up of yellow lettering on the wavy glass separating some bar seats from the kitchen, reading “coffee/iced tea/milkshake/beer/nachos/snacks”entryway to the kitchenself-service bar including silverware, straws, wet wipes, a glass jar full of ice water, and special Travel Maker GripToks for sale
After our delicious meal, we walked through the park to a cafe where I had, quite possibly, the worst “specialty” coffee I’ve had in Korea. My friends couldn’t finish theirs, either. Below are some of the photos I took along our walk.
Gyeongui Line Forest Park in the fall with yellow and green leavesCraft Hans, a three story Korean craft beer brewery with balcony covered in plantsa small Buddhist temple (possibly a residence as well?) next to a garish purple building housing a 19+ adult shoplatest Kakao Friends collaboration: Tom and Jerry; Ryan is wearing a Tom suitChunsik wearing a Jerry suit and running away with a sweet potatodirty, yet colorful, trash can on the street, with empty plastic coffee cups sitting on the topsome cool hot pink cat wearing a yellow shirt holding a spraypaint can in one hand and a cell phone in the other graffiti artworkwavy designed buildingstaircase painted in faded rainbow progression; the walls are covered in graffiti tagshere are signs saying that if you want to busk here, you need to register; there are many spaces to sit and perform herethis image makes me believe this is “Red Road,” which was recently converted into pedestrian-only trafficanother view of Red Road; I tried to get a picture of the digital sign that read the temperature and air quality index but it glitched on camerahandmade craft fair along Red Roadfront of a pork belly restaurant with a lit up sign in Hangul, a staircase just inside the door, and Jinro Pinky, the large pink frog mascot of Jinro soju sitting outsideanother view along Red Roadblue vertical subway sign for entrance 7 of Hongik University Station, serving 3 linescute painted tiles in the subway station of a giant pink heart and the words “with you” in yellow handwriting on blue tiles
I’ll definitely be returning when I get a craving for an American breakfast but, uh, I’ll have to find another cafe in the area to visit for coffee afterwards.
An interesting article about the state of online restaurant reviews in Korea can be found here. Even though the article is 10 years old, the struggle is still very real.
Koffee & Kpop 
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